Although water apparently flowed on Mars, it's not known for certain just
how long it flowed. For instance, a catastropic flood of only months' duration, rather than a drainage pattern that lasts for millions of years, can have a huge effect in geomorphology, carving out very long and deep channels. That happened on earth
at the end of the most recent ice age, when melting glaciers formed huge lakes behind them that suddenly came pouring out when the last barriers containing them gave way. It is at least possible that large quantities of ice buried in the Martian crust melted
all at once as the result of a volcanic erruption, with a similar effect. In a desert environment even a huge lake can evaporate quite rapidly, showing retreating shorelines of salt deposits that were formed over just centuries, not millenia. Also, it should
be remembered that all evidence collected so far indicates that the present very weak magnetic field of Mars was not any stronger billions of years ago - it is not something that happened over eons as the core cooled down slowly. That means for most of the
time that life on earth consisted of microbes, the surface of Mars has been zapped by radiation that would tend to break down complex molecules and of course kill organisms. As Elton John and Bernie Taupin reminded us in "Rocket Man", "Mars ain't no place
to raise your kids..."

It's too bad that the overall search for understanding of the universe around us and its origin has been so completely dominated in the public mind by only one aspect of that search, namely the quest for extraterrestrial life. It's hard to fault NASA for jumping
on that same bandwagon in order to win support, but putting so many of their eggs in this one basket runs the risk that if the landers do eventually show that life was never present on Mars, then people will decide "Then what's the point?" of the whole space
program, and the whole thing will go away.

Leave it to Microsoft marketing (who came up with the name "Hailstorm" to make you want to use a product) to name an OS (even a "dummy" one) after a desert. Makes for some great slogans: "Mojave - and you thought Win ME was barren!", etc., etc. When
Windows 7 hits the shelves, will it be sold under the name "(Blue Screen of) Death Valley"?

Maybe the long-term goal is to build a Virtual Cineplex consisting of dozens of Youtube theaters, where your avatar has to sit through a bunch of ads to get to the videos (while chatting with your fellow audience members, of course)? It's hard to see
how they will make money from this "product" otherwise.